TRAVELLING LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 126, 31 May 1938, Page 10

TRAVELLING LIBRARIES

The inauguration of the Country Library Service marks another important development in the lives of those who spend their days in the remote places of the Dominion. Electricity, the telephone, and radio have given these people many of the advantages of civilisation, but the difficulty of obtaining a regular supply of good literature has been a big drawback, particularly where there are families to" be educated. As an educational force, radio, powerful as its influence is, has not replaced literature; there is still a tremendous demand, in the country as in the cities, for the written word. Naturally, farmers and other people living in isolated districts cannot buy all the books they desire to read, nor can they pay regular visits to public or private libraries to secure their requirements. Similarly, small circulating libraries in country towns are restricted in their ordering of new books by limited membership and small financial return. The Country Library Service aims to overcome both these disadvantages. Under the scheme public libraries will be visited at regular intervals by a book van and their supply of books replenished, and groups of readers or individuals in isolated or remote parts of the country will also be visited. In this way, country readers will have made available to them the latest literature almost as soon as it is available to readers in the cities and larger towns, A balance is to be preserved between fiction and non-fiction, so that the educational side of the work will not be overlooked. The Country Library Service will have the good wishes of all.